Wilhelm Peterson-Berger - Arnljot (Okko Kamu)

Information

Composer: Wilhelm Peterson-Berger

1. Arnljot, Act I Scene 8: Arnljot's Greeting Song
2. Arnljot, Act I Scene 11: The Thing March
3. Arnljot, Act II Scene 2: Waino's First Song
4. Arnljot, Act II Scene 9: Gunhild and Arnljot, Encounter into the Wilderness
5. Arnljot, Act II Scene 7: Waino's Second Song
6. Arnljot, Act II Scene 11 & 12: Arnljot's Dream Vision
7. Arnljot, Act III Scene 4: Tormod's Song
8. Arnljot, Act III Scene 17 & 18: The Death of Arnljot

Erland Hagegård; Edith Thallaug; Karin Langebo

Björn Asker; Kåge Jehrlander

Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra

Okko Kamu, conductor

Recorded: 1973

Released: 2009

Label: Sterling

https://www.sterlingcd.com/catalogue/cdo1082.html

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Review

Peterson-Berger - better known on record for his symphonies - here demonstrates a sure dramatic hand. He has the ability to imbue ancient characters with a convincing vital humanity.

Arnljot is an eleventh century tale set in Jämtland in Sweden. Arnljot has been promised these many years to Gunhild. He has been away at sea a-viking. It's a long and convoluted saga but comes to a crown in Arnljot's conversion to Christianity. He suffers death in battle after a return to duty and to Gunhild.

There's a steady Delian-Tannhauser glow to Arnljot's Greeting while the romping and echoing fanfares of the Thing March make it a memorable entry. Waino's First Song is surgingly Puccinian - very exciting and delivered with a burning flame in the voice by Langebo. There is drama and nuance in the dialogue between Arnljot and Gunhild. The music is threaded through with the classic Swedish romantic impulse - listen to Hagegard in his long 'high hills' solo in the Encounter. The Dream Vision sports high strings pianissimo with colder ripples cross-cutting the texture. In its choral close there is a return to the confident singing gold of the Swedish lyrical mainstream. Tormod's Song is brief and another one of those stalwart bardic hymns: patriotic and yeoman sturdy. The Death of Arnljot is the longest track and closes the sequence in convincing form.

The words as sung in their original Swedish and with parallel English translation are in the booklet. There's also a note by that eminence of Swedish music, Lennart Hedwall who also provided the rounded concert-endings for these excerpts.

Arnljot was premiered in Stockholm on 13 April 1910. It is performed every year at the summer festival in the open air auditorium at Jämtland on the island of Frösö. Quite apart from two wondrously inventive and unmissably lyrical symphonies (2 and 3) there are other stage works: Ran, Domedagsprofeterna (1919) (there's an orchestral suite on CPO) and finally Adils und Elisif (1927).

This disc certainly leaves you wanting to hear the whole thing - why not record the next summer festival performance - maybe even a DVD?

The recording is now just over a quarter century old but holds up pretty well and certainly there is no distortion.

The Peterson-Berger Society can be contacted via their website.

-- Rob Barnett, MusicWeb International

More reviews:

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2009/dec09/Peterson-Berger_CDO10822.htm

http://www.musicweb-international.com/classrev/2017/Jun/Peterson-Berger_Arnljot_CDO10822.htm

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Wilhelm Peterson-Berger (27 February 1867, Ullånger, Ångermanland – 3 December 1942, Östersund) was a Swedish composer and music critic. As a composer, his main musical influences were Grieg, August Söderman and Wagner as well as Swedish folk idiom. He is best known for three albums of national romantic piano pieces (Frösöblomster I, II, III), which were composed over a period of 18 years (1896-1914). His other works include five symphonies, four operas and about eighty songs. His songs for vocal ensemble are also still regularly performed, and are part of the core repertoire of Swedish choirs.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilhelm_Peterson-Berger

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Okko Kamu (born 7 March 1946, Helsinki, Finland) is a Finnish orchestral conductor. Kamu studied violin at the Sibelius Academy and was primarily self-taught as a conductor. In 1969, he won the first Herbert von Karajan Conducting Competition in Berlin. From 1971 to 1977, Kamu was principal conductor of the Finnish Radio Symphony Orchestra. He was also principal conductor of the Oslo Philharmonic (1975-79), the Finnish National Opera (1996-2000), and the Lahti Symphony Orchestra (2011-2016). Kamu has recorded more than 100 discs for various labels, winning two Diapason d'Or awards.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okko_Kamu

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